


A Long Year Under Glass

by Thebonemoose



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Metaphor Heavy, mentions of insect death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:08:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,197
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25311364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thebonemoose/pseuds/Thebonemoose
Summary: When Emily was a young girl, her mother took her to a museum. Emily was curious as a child, and she soaked up new information like a thirsty sponge, so the museum was one of her favorite places to go.Except, of course, the insect room.It’s not that Emily had been particularly afraid of bugs. It’s that she felt so bad for them.The first time she’d walked into that room holding her mother’s hand, and stared, wide-eyed, at the frames of pinned, dead insects, Emily had burst into tears. Her mother had taken her into the restroom and held her while she cried, but Emily could not calm down.“They shouldn’t have to die so we can look at them!” she’d cried, and her mother just pressed Emily closer, rubbing her back in soothing circles.She had been so tender-hearted as a child. She cared so much.But the process of forming calluses starts so early for tender-hearted children, and Emily did not weep for bugs after that, even if she did still avoid the insect room.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	A Long Year Under Glass

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [and i'm not your protagonist](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24666526) by [and_hera](https://archiveofourown.org/users/and_hera/pseuds/and_hera). 



> You know when you write something, and you're like "is this good? is this straight dookie?"
> 
> Yeah.
> 
> Title is from "Kites" by Dessa which is an excellent and thematically appropriate song

When Emily was a young girl, her mother took her to a museum. Emily was curious as a child, and she soaked up new information like a thirsty sponge, so the museum was one of her favorite places to go. 

Except, of course, the insect room. 

It’s not that Emily had been particularly afraid of bugs. It’s that she felt so bad for them.

The first time she’d walked into that room holding her mother’s hand, and stared, wide-eyed, at the frames of pinned, dead insects, Emily had burst into tears. Her mother had taken her into the restroom and held her while she cried, but Emily could not calm down. 

Mrs. Potter had attempted to explain that the insects were displayed to be educational, but Emily just shook her head, tears making tracks on the skin of her cheeks, and said that it wasn’t _right._

“They shouldn’t have to die so we can look at them!” she’d cried, and her mother just pressed Emily closer, rubbing her back in soothing circles. 

She had been so tender-hearted as a child. She cared so much. 

But the process of forming calluses starts so early for tender-hearted children, and Emily did not weep for bugs after that, even if she did still avoid the insect room. 

///

Once, when she was in middle school, there was a boy who liked Emily. He gave her a flower after school one day, and flashed her a smile. 

Two minutes later, he was stomping on beetles, and laughing with his friends at the sickening _crunch_.

Emily threw the flower away, and didn’t speak to him again. 

///

Emily grew up beautiful, and she grew up nice, and she grew up smart. Take note of the order. 

Beautiful.  
Nice.  
Smart. 

This was important, because some people like smart girls, most people like nice girls, but everyone likes beautiful girls. 

(Emily got so sick and tired of being described as ‘beautiful’. The first thing anybody saw her as was beautiful. Sometimes, it was the only thing.)

She got a job she was qualified for in King Falls, and she had high hopes for that sleepy little town. This was her chance, wasn’t it? She could define herself her own way. She didn’t have to be bound by the opinions of others, people who told her who she was and how she was supposed to act. 

(She was wrong.)

///

Ben Arnold had a smile like sunshine on water, and it took her breath away, a little bit. He looked at her like he wanted her to keep talking, like she was the museum and he was that thirsty-sponge child. 

She wanted to know him, wanted to make friends with his friends and meet his mother and memorize his handwriting. And sometimes, she thought he wanted the same. 

But she got her hopes up too high. 

God, she was tired of being a trophy. When Greg looked at her, he saw an ornament. When Ben looked at her, he saw a person, but a person who couldn’t protect herself. They both thought she was fragile. Breakable. 

Maybe she was. But she didn’t want to depend on anyone else to fix her. 

///

Ben had realized his mistake, had humbled himself and apologized, and Emily thought maybe this was the turning point. Maybe this was intelligence first, kindness second, beauty last. Maybe this was what defining yourself was. 

So she brought a cake to her friends, and then she was plucked from the earth like a daisy from its stem.

///

In her few and far-inbetween moments of lucidity, Emily wondered, distantly, if this was how those bugs felt. 

A clinical room. Her limbs, trapped. Pinned to a table. Her mouth wide in a soundless scream. 

And then the blissful relief of unconsciousness.

///

She didn’t know who she was. She knew she was Emily Potter, but who _exactly_ was Emily Potter? A librarian? A daughter? 

A car crash victim?

The problem was that Greg had been so _nice_ in those first few weeks. And niceness was important, right? It was good to be nice. If you were nice, you were probably trustworthy. Greg was probably trustworthy. 

(Sometimes she thought about Ben Arnold, who looked at her with such deep sorrow it almost overwhelmed her. _He_ knew who Emily Potter was, didn’t he?)

Greg was nice, and he smiled, and gave her compliments, and Emily mistakenly assumed that he could help her find out who she was. 

He held her hand, and his was clammy. He touched her back, and she wanted to flinch away. But he was nice. 

And he stayed nice, the whole time. Even when he told her driving to visit her mom wasn’t a good idea, or it would be fine to miss her appointment, and Emily, don’t you know those radio boys aren’t good for you?

Even when he took her phone, because it wasn’t _healthy_ to be on her phone all the time, and doesn’t she know she should unplug?

Even when he ‘“forgot” to tell her that her mother called. Even when he wouldn’t let her go out in public without him. 

Sometimes he would take her on dates, and Greg would puff up his chest and grin like he was made of teeth, and he’d nod his head to Emily, showing her off. Greg had Emily on his arm. Greg snagged the beautiful librarian. 

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. 

///

Emily once sat for hours watching ants in a procession, each carrying their own contribution for the good of the colony. She watched them, and she thought about beetles and butterflies and bugs, posed and trapped under glass. 

When Greg looked at her, his gaze was a stainless steel pin, piercing her sternum. He smiled at her, and took her hand, and affixed her beneath glass. 

She didn’t know who Emily Potter was, if not a butterfly killed for your viewing pleasure. 

She started ignoring Greg’s calls. 

///

_I Am Meant For This World._

Those words played in her mind on repeat. She was a broken record of paving her way, of insisting she belonged in a world trying to force her out. 

She was supposed to be here. Fate be damned. 

The thing about being unwritten is that you become a pen, and every day you write a new sentence, a new story for yourself when there was supposed to be none. 

Ben Arnold saved her life. Greg Frickard gaslit her, manipulated her, and eroded her into dust. 

Emily Potter was defining herself. She would be defining herself for the rest of her life, probably. 

She was not a butterfly on display. She was not a woman on a pedestal, flat and two dimensional. She was not a trophy wife, submitting to and bearing sons for her husband. 

Emily Potter was prophesied about. Emily Potter was carving her place in the Earth, laying a foundation for a life she was not supposed to have. Emily Potter was an investigative mind and a resilient body.

She was held together with love and elbow grease, patched with clay and fired until vitrified. 

She would keep her people safe, and keep them whole, and _that_ is who Emily Potter was.

**Author's Note:**

> Emily Potter lives in my brain rent free.


End file.
